The present invention relates generally to agricultural harvesting equipment and more particularly relates to harvesters for root crops such as sugar beets. In the following Background of the Invention and Description of the Preferred Embodiment, the root crop harvester will be described as a sugar beet harvester, but it should be understood that reference is made to sugar beets only for the purpose of providing a specific disclosure and not for limiting the invention.
Beet harvesters have remained basically unchanged for many years and have relied primarily upon chain conveyors or potato chains to elevate the beets from the digger wheels to a truck or trailer running alongside the harvester or to a tank on the harvester for subsequent delivery to the truck or trailer. In order to deliver the beets to a truck or trailer running alongside the harvester, it is necessary that a conveyor extend outwardly to a position over truck or trailer. This outwardly projecting conveyor increased the width of the harvester to such an extent that it was very difficult to transport the harvester through gateways or on public roads. Also, because of the pure bulk and numerous parts of potato chains, it has been a difficult and involved process to reduce the width of the harvester for transport.
In the aforementioned copending U.S. applications, there is disclosed and claimed various aspects of a beet harvester which eliminates many of the potato chains, but it still has an upper conveyor which extends laterally outwardly for the deposit of beets into a truck or trailer moving alongside the harvester.